A loop picker is mounted on a picker stick to throw and receive the impact of the shuttle during loom operation. A common form is built by assembling rubberized fabric layers to provide an uncured oversize blank of the general shape desired and then subjecting this blank to a vulcanizing cure under molding pressure to size the final picker body with the outward appearance of being solid. U.S. Pat. No. 2,032,734, for example, illustrates and describes the formation of such a picker.
In order to provide for picker stick mounting, the picker body is conventionally formed with a hole or loop that is sized for installation on the upper end of the picker stick, which is characteristically tapered. According to usual practice, the picker loop is undersized from front to back, in the order of 1/16 inch, so that the picker body will encounter some resistance on the picker stick taper requiring it to be pressed into place and allowing it to be aligned readily at the shuttle level.
With picker bodies of this sort as heretofore available, however, the allowable undersizing of the loop for the foregoing purpose was not sufficient to hold the picker in place during use, so that application of glue between the picker and stick or insertion of a fastening screw was needed to complete the installation. In either event, as the picker will wear and must be replaced a number of times during the life of the stick, the matter of picker replacement was rendered difficult and often resulted in damaging the stick at its upper end taper to such an extent that it would have to be discarded before its useful life was spent.
The above-noted prior U.S. Pat. No. 3,605,820 made it possible to undersize the loop to a greater extent for combatting such difficulties, but the picker stick holding grip obtained from such further undersizing has not heretofore been as great as desirable.